Skin and Bones
by Weasley's Revenge
Summary: They would just rationalize it all over again.  Because Tim was too smart to do that to himself.  Because even if they knew it was true, they couldn't believe it.


**AN: **Honestly I've been planning this for a while. Very vague third-person about Tim and the whole anorexia thing that some of us are worried about. This may seem harsh. This may seem crass, but I lived through it (and am in some way still living with it) as a friend.

"The moments that define who we are as people are seldom the ones we are proud of." –Me(will explain in bottom AN)

They all watched from a close distance as he wasted away to nothing. They all watched as he took the steps and only had one donut a week. They all watched as the pounds shed away like rain on a duck's well-oiled feathers. Maybe they were too close to the problem, or maybe they didn't want to think it was a problem. Maybe they didn't want to believe the thing they all realized was the truth.

In the course of a year, he had gone from a scared, pudgy geek to a waifish man—someone whose weight had always been there turned into a stick. When you spend all of your time with someone, changes that are dramatic can seem so much slower. Twenty pounds in a month-and-half wasn't healthy, and neither was thirty by two. He started to hide underneath his clothing wearing the same things that were now so much baggier. Of course they noticed, but they rationalized it to themselves with phrases they would come to hate: _He's taking care of himself. He did need to lose some weight. He took the initiative._

They never voiced their real concerns until it was too late. They never confronted him. They never said what they were really thinking: _Tim, you need to stop this. You look sick. Eating isn't a crime._ They never told him what they knew—they never confronted him. They just let him waste away.

It was never a conscious decision. They didn't spend their time talking about how they were going to let him do this. It was decided so many times—this was the day they would confront him. This was the day they would tell him to go to counseling or join a support group, but it never happened that way. They would just rationalize it all over again. Because Tim was too smart to do that to himself. Because even if they knew it was true, they couldn't believe it.

Each of them had their own reasons. Abby loved him, and so could not accuse him. Tony secretly cared, like an unknown benefactor he could not believe what he thought so preposterous. Ziva had seen too much of the world to jump to conclusions about a person's behavior. Gibbs too had seen too much to jump to a conclusion that fit with nothing he knew of McGee.

They each had their reasons. They each had their suspicions. But reason was a twisted thing and suspicion could be right.

In the end, they cared more about what he thought of them than his health. They refused to confront him because if they were wrong they may never be right in his eyes again. If he needed help, he would tell them. Because they were friends, and that's what friends did.

:.:.:.:

It was Gibbs who ended up getting the call. He didn't recognize the caller ID, but answered on the fourth ring. "Hello, Gibbs, this is Sarah." His mind is filled with the image of the curly-haired sister of his youngest agent. "Tim," she let out a choked sob, "He made me promise to tell you he has Strep-Throat, but he doesn't. He," she let out another small sob, "Tim has anorexia. He collapsed this morning when he was jogging. I just thought you should know. He's always talking about how close all of you are." She hung up before he could say anything in return.

He turned to the others and tried to word it correctly. "Tim's got," he could not say the word as if it was the word that held the power of Tim's health, "He's really sick. That was Sarah she said he collapsed this morning."

:.:.:.:

They each handled it differently, but there were two common things. Anger. At themselves and at Tim. Guilt. For blaming Tim, and for not confronting him. For letting it get so far.

But all the guilt and anger in the world could not change what they had not done. No matter how much they wished, nothing would change the cold truth. They had cared too much about what he thought of them and not enough about if he would be alive to think. There was no dealing with it. There was no escaping it. It would forever be the giant purple elephant in the room. It would forever be the biggest nonevent in their friendship.

Though, for all of their inaction, Tim had not confided in them either. Blame begot blame, and it was poison to their friendship. Tim not only lost weight he lost his friends ever something he could not control. He lost trust for something he had not done consciously. And he lost himself inside the shell of a formerly vibrant person.

**AN:** Ok so when I was in fourth grade I met this girl. Let's call her Linda. She and I hated each other for a very long time, but after awhile we grew to like each other before we knew it we were best friends—I spent hours with her and knew her better than myself. Let's fast-forward to sixth grade when another girl (we'll call her Jamie) joined our circle of friends. The three of us were inseparable. Linda had always been on the heavier side, and a common inside joke was to call each other "fat" and "body-bash" just for the heck of it. At the end of seventh grade Linda started to lose a lot of weight very quickly. Jamie and I became very concerned and decided that if it got any worse we would do something—tell someone. We never did. We kept denying it even when people asked we said that she was fine. I doubt that I will ever regret something more.

Watching such a lively excited person fade into a gray rail. Linda was my best friend and now we barely talk because we can never get over that giant, purple, polka-dotted elephant that's always right there. The guilt and anger. The helplessness. It has changed me as a person.

The quote at the beginning is( as far as I know) original. The moments (and there were many of them) that I denied that she was sick, the moments that I hated her for not telling me, they all define who I am as a person in all my hot-headed, self-absorbed glory, and I am not proud of them at all.


End file.
